ETA: Good morning, all! For the new folks, please know that while disagreement is fine, I don’t have much patience for trolling, sock-puppetry, and for showing up in my space to act like a douchewagon. Comments that can’t handle that will be fed to the goblins.

ETA2: And to forestall certain individuals’ whining about “free speech,” please see this post: Freedom of Speech 101.

“A children’s show, of all places, is where you decided to place an ad for a sexual aberration; you pervert your story telling skills to the cause of propaganda and political correctness.”

I assume Wright’s blog post was written over the course of several days, as he would have needed time to swoon over the horrific perversion of two women holding hands. Not to mention having to counsel his poor, traumatized children.

Keep in mind, this is a show that not only had explicit male/female smooching, but has also shown a woman being suffocated to death via airbending, the imprisonment and torture of Korra, the suicide of a season one villain, and plenty of other instances of brutal violence. But this is what Wright feels he must “protect” the children from.

Wright continues:

“You were not content to leave the matter ambiguous, no, but had publicly to announce that you hate your audience, our way of life, our virtues, values, and religion.”

The delusionality is strong with this one. Watch as he attempts to speak for an entire audience, many of whom were screaming with happiness at the Korra/Asami revelation.

These are some of the people he’s trying to speak for. Do they look like people whose way of life, whose values and religion and virtues, are so incredibly fragile that they can be hurt so badly by a several-second clip of two women holding hands, or the idea of two women falling in love?

Mister Wright, you do not speak for the audience of this show. You speak for yourself, and perhaps for a small group of intolerant bigots who can’t accept the slightest acknowledgement or recognition of relationships you personally disapprove of, for whatever twisted reason.

“Mr DiMartino and Mr Konietzko: You are disgusting, limp, soulless sacks of filth. You have earned the contempt and hatred of all decent human beings forever, and we will do all we can to smash the filthy phallic idol of sodomy you bow and serve and worship. Contempt, because you struck from behind, cravenly; and hatred, because you serve a cloud of morally-retarded mental smog called Political Correctness, which is another word for hating everything good and bright and decent and sane in life.”

The Phallic Idol of Sodomy. Also known as the Ypsilanti Water Tower:

I went to grad school in Ypsi. It’s amazing I escaped with my heterosexuality intact, spending two years in such close proximity to the PIoS!

A part of me wants to ask what happened to Mr. Wright that a couple of bisexual cartoon characters could send him into such an apoplexy of hatred and rage. What happened to make you so afraid, sir?

But before we get into that, I have to ask how you came to the conclusion that a relationship between two women was all about phallicism and sodomy. I think you might be a little confused as to how things work. Does someone need to sit you down and have “the talk”?

Wright concludes his rant by saying:

“I have no hatred in my heart for any man’s politics, policies, or faith, any more than I have hatred for termites; but once they start undermining my house where I live, it is time to exterminate them.”

Right. There’s nothing hateful about calling people “disgusting, limp, soulless sacks of filth,” or comparing them to termites and calling for their extermination.

Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are shows about overcoming hatred and violence and fear. How can you claim to be “a lifelong fan” when you hold so much hatred and intolerance in your heart?

Aang would be so disappointed in you. I suspect Korra would simply turn her back on you and your irrelevant, close-minded views.

I know I’m not going to change your mind. I’m not going to break you out of your little world, or get you to see that the rest of the world is moving on without you. I doubt I’ll make any difference in helping you to see how much Korra and Asami matter to people, how important a step this was. I doubt you’ll recognize LGBT people as human beings with as much value and right to love and happiness as you or me.

But I can damn well make sure you understand that you do not speak for the audience of this show. You are not the mouthpiece for fans. Speak your poison in your own name if you must, but don’t tarnish the rest of fandom with your bile.

And given the joy I saw on my dashboard when that finale came out, I’m confident that Wright’s in the minority.

SheckyDec 30, 2014 @ 11:35:59

And I went to college not far from the Gaffney, SC, water tower, also known as the Giant Hemorrhoid in the Sky. With that permanent display of air ass, I can’t imagine how I POSSIBLY escaped with heterosexuality intact. *eyeroll*

I think my favorite is a giant unneeded bell tower that was built in the middle of the main street of Ball State University’s campus. The street was split around the tower in such a manner to make seeing pedestrians even harder. This giant phallus was constructed poorly, by lowest bidders at the behest of John Worthen, the outgoing president of the university. At least when I was there, it was called Worthen’s Last Erection.

Madame HardyDec 30, 2014 @ 11:37:26

Note also that two women holding hands while walking into the sunset is at best a dogwhistle (not that we’re not all grateful for that dogwhistle), and certainly won’t need explaining to the children. Surely children still hold hands with their best friends?

The only people who recognize that two women holding hands might have an orientation connotation are people who already know that lesbians exist. The moth-wing-delicate innocence of children will just have to keep on being destroyed by (A) their own knowledge of themselves and (B) other children.

Stephanie WhelanDec 30, 2014 @ 11:38:00

You know . . . after watching Revolutionary Girl Utena I can’t say Korra seemed anything but tame ^_^. But great–mind you–romance or not the idea that two women can walk off into the sunset so to speak is awesome.

Madame HardyDec 30, 2014 @ 11:38:02

Do not defame the name of the Mighty Peachoid.

Todd PollmanDec 30, 2014 @ 11:41:21

Wright’s epic idiocy aside, I find so much joy in watching fan reactions to things online. There is such a happiness in these kind of videos that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.

Orson Scott Card gets all the disapproval, but really, the man seems positively progressive in his views next to the sheer toxic force of John C. Wright’s raging bigotry.

CFDec 30, 2014 @ 11:42:28

Sometimes I forget that you’re from this area, and it leads to me having moments like “HOLY SHIT how does he know about the water tower?”

In all seriousness, I never watched Avatar but I was thrilled with the excited, joyful reactions I saw to the finale and with the unequivocal confirmation by the creators.

(Unrelated: I lost a trivial pursuit game yesterday because “Danielle” is not the correct answer for Cinderella’s real name. So, thanks for nothing.)

ClaudiaDec 30, 2014 @ 11:46:20

What a dipshit.

Jay WhelanDec 30, 2014 @ 11:47:44

If I may indulge in a bit of dogespeak: So pearl. Many clutches. Wow. 😉

The most hilarious thing to me is that in fulminating his horrid geyser of hateful spume, Wright shows you *exactly* what spends a lot of time at the forefront of his mind. Talk about your Freudian slips . . .

Ursula, he is indeed a writer, and unfortunately the kind of born again “Catholic” that makes other Catholics a bit embarrassed by being associated with him.

Madame HardyDec 30, 2014 @ 11:56:32

No True Scotsman alert: Wright, in comments.

“The people not upset about this are not fans of the show, because to be a fan means to use one’s judgment to judge the show as being well crafted and the story well told. “

CFDec 30, 2014 @ 12:05:29

Apparently they thought her name was Ella, which strikes me as very uncreative. I like Danielle better.

AdrianDec 30, 2014 @ 12:08:11

My daughter’s response was turning to me and saying “The Avatar has been both male and female many times, so why should she care about gender? It would be shocking if she weren’t bi.” Obviously this demonstration of logic and calm acceptance means she is ruined for life.

Yeah, I’ve been around the Ypstilanti Water Tower. My reaction to it is that if that didn’t turn me into a lesbian, I guess nothing will. So the secret cult of water tower builders determined to change people’s sexual orientation failed with both me AND Jim! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

A colleague at work who has a young child had a bit of a rant the other day over Cartoon Network running a ‘wolf eats Grannie’ version of Little Red Riding Hood. He was quite upset and was worried that his four year old would be traumatized.

Of course in most versions of the story that haven’t been white-washed for our delicate modern sensibilities the wolf does, in fact, eat Grannie. The world is, after all, not a safe place. I pointed this out to him. “That,” I added, “Is the probable outcome you put a hungry wolf and Grannie (or almost any human) in the same room. I would think you’d want your son to know such things.”

Needless to say, he preferred to maintain his child’s illusion of safety.

Everybody seems to think they can protect their children from points of view with which they don’t agree. The internet and five billion cable channels has made this easier. And if you look around the internet is chock-a-block with people railing at content producers about said content’s cultural make-up. The content producers, of course, will never get it right. So background noise of ‘what-about-the-children?’ objections is as eternal in inevitable as the sound of gulls on the seashore. It’s a once in future thing. Frankly I try not to pay them any mind, regardless of which side of an issue they’re flogging.

Who’s holding hands with whom is rarely important to the narrative. I’m here for the stories and judge accordingly.

-dsr-Dec 30, 2014 @ 12:34:00

Also, Mr. Wright is ignorant about the sin of Sodom, which is in Ezekiel 16:49-50:

49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

That is, Sodom was wealthy and did not feed the poor, did not welcome the stranger. Nothing to do with sex.

I want to be the counterpoint for a second here. This is an addendum I made to a post of my own, in comments and on Tumblr – apologies for the pasta, but I think it’s important:

I saw a comment on Tumblr that this was the ending we all wanted, but that we weren’t emotionally ready for it. I think they’re on to something; we did all want it, but we weren’t ready for it, because we didn’t think it could happen – it was our impossibility.

But suddenly it actually happened, and the world changed, and we’re all in a kind of shock from the emotional unreadiness. It’s the best kind of emotional unreadiness, perhaps, but unreadiness nonetheless.

I think that comment reveals a lot about why so many of us are reacting not just so strongly, but over so many days. We weren’t ready for this; we couldn’t be, because it was impossible. And all these many days of reaction are us emotionally processing that the world is suddenly new. Particularly for the adult fans, we’re… catching up. We’re playing forward this emotional release from all the years ago when all the straight kids got this sort of thing but we didn’t, reeling it out to whatever point our adult lives are in now. That takes time. It may take a lot of time for some of us; it’s as if a lot of very old metaphorical/emotional logjams across the many people of the fandom have been blown clear, and it’s all cascading downstream.

The poison wasn’t just in Korra; it was in a lot of us, too.

This addendum has well north of 30,000 views; it’s been shared around like crazy. But this guy? This John Wright? No. He wants us to keep carrying that poison.

Ah, I see Mr. Wright has volunteered to remove himself from any possibility of making it onto my To Read pile. Since my To Read pile is well over 1,200 titles right now, I can’t say it’ll miss him.

And it’s all good, he wouldn’t want to read my stuff either. Given that I’m a female woman of the same girlish gender as my spouse *points up the thread at Dara’s comment*. And given that I’ve got *gasp!* queer people in my books!

Meanwhile, Dara and I have declared a new holiday: Korrasamimas! Which is celebrated by eating a feast of noodles. 😀

Jay WhelanDec 30, 2014 @ 13:05:19

Oh, we’ve already been that route. My wife and I watched the movie one New Year’s eve and gave it the MST3K treatment. 🙂

Some of his books are *very* good – further evidence that writing talent and sanity are non-correlated. His writing tends toward weird, particularly the recent series, but his first series (pre-conversion!) was very solid. (The Golden Age, etc. )

Of course I tend toward the side of buying whatever books I think are good, regardless of the ideology of the author; not everyone feels that way. (I won’t however read any more Ringo, but that’s for a totally different reason. No John Ringo, No…)

Joe MDec 30, 2014 @ 13:20:54

Unfortunately the converted tend towards this sort of extreme in my experience – not sure if it is because they want to convince others of the veracity of their conversion (or themselves) or if it is the nature of what caused them to convert. Sigh.

Jay WhelanDec 30, 2014 @ 13:59:23

Pretty much how we felt when we were done watching it’s complete lack of existence. 😉

Jay WhelanDec 30, 2014 @ 14:00:00

ITS. Sorry. I’ll be by to pick up that apostrophe I dropped later.

CelestineDec 30, 2014 @ 14:00:55

For some reason, I thought this was an actor, but he turns out to be a writer whose books I will never buy.

KeithDec 30, 2014 @ 14:04:24

I feel obligated to point out there was a slight error in the post: it wasn’t the suicide of the season one villain (although it was implied he knew it was coming at some point) but a *murder-suicide*, with the villain as the murder victim.

This is both hilarious and sad on multiple levels. I didn’t read Mr. Wright’s actual article, because it’s too nice a day to read something that I’m sure would piss me off to no end, but it seems like he’s pulling the classic “Think of the CHILDREN!!!!!” bit, among many other bog-standard homophobic attempts at forming an argument. Clearly he doesn’t understand that some of the children are gay/bi/other than 0 on the Kinsey scale, whether or not they know it yet. -_-

There are a lot of reasons I’m so incredibly happy with how LoK ended. But one of them is that we need more heroes that show the world that heroes don’t have to be straight. It’s like Mr. Konietzko said in his blog entry about Korrasami being canon: “Just because two characters of the same sex appear in the same story, it should not preclude the possibility of a romance between them. No, not everyone is queer, but the other side of that coin is that not everyone is straight.”

I think this is something that needs to happen more, a lot more. It needs to happen often enough that it stops being a big deal. I want to see an action movie where the female lead talks about going home to her wife, and no one thinks that’s strange. I want to see a Disney movie that ends with two princes or two princesses getting married – or both, both is good. I want to see a war movie where the two guys who’ve been kicking ass and taking names throughout the whole thing head back home, arm in arm, to their favorite bar, where everyone knows their names and knows they’ve been together for years.

It’s good to see that things are changing, though slowly. And I’m really hoping the Korrasami ending is just the beginning.

gwDec 30, 2014 @ 14:43:24

I went to a high school which had a rocket as a mascot. One year some public art funding was used to build a sculpture on campus. The results were such that the senior prank that year was to put a giant condom on it. And that’s why I’m a lesbian[*].

It starts rough, I have to say. I wrote quite a bit about that in spoilery form here, but to sum up without spoilers: there are a lot of things I found weird and/or broken in Book 1 that made much, much more sense once you had a fuller context from later episodes. I compare the effect to what JMS called “holographic storytelling” in his discussions of writing Babylon 5 – later story makes early story more complex and interesting – but it would’ve been better had they been able to make things less rocky, as it were, while laying the foundations.

Relatedly, anyone coming from Avatar: The Last Airbender may find that reading the post-series The Promise graphic novel makes a lot of emotional things about Korra herself make more sense, as well. But again: ideally, that shouldn’t be necessary.

A decent chunk of this is Nick’s fault; originally, The Promise was pitched for television, but they skipped ahead to Korra. Then Nick only wanted one year of Korra, then two, then four, and that changed during production of Books 1 and then 2, so they had a lot of crazy rewriting around Nick’s changing schedules and demands.

All that said, it’s worth staying the course. Midway through Book 2 – in an arc called “The First Avatar,” which is utterly gorgeous and beautiful just to watch, you’ll see why when you get there – they hit the AWESOME button and then just kept punching that thing as hard as they could.

Oh, I disagree. He was seriously malicious. In the “absolute rule” way, rather than the “destroy everything” way, but still malicious.

ThaliaDec 30, 2014 @ 14:52:51

That’s because Card is a famous SF writer, whereas Wright is an online ranter who happens to have written some mediocre science fiction. Though he does have some strong defenders on Wikipedia, who make sure that his hatefilled ranting is not mentioned in his bio.

Wow, don’t miss later in the comments where he claims progressives can’t be fans of ANYTHING.

Normally, I skip comment sections on rants like this, but this is some seriously funny stuff. It’s Poe’s Law at work: “Without a clear indication of the author’s intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.”

Although, Wright’s rants are so full of frothy indignation, I had to clean my monitor off after viewing them.

There are many conservative Catholics I enjoy talking to or even arguing with, mostly because the best of them have benefited from the centuries of thinking about difficult problems the Church has spent (often getting it wrong, but still…). John Wright is not one of them. He combines the know-nothingness of a fundamentalist Protestant with the passion of a Roman Catholic, and it’s not a pretty combination.

I’ll bet you he’s having tremendous problems with Francis.

Cynthia PriceDec 30, 2014 @ 15:25:25

My thoughts, exactly, Anna and Jim. 🙂

One of the things I don’t get about my sister, who I am spending the holidays with, is that she has, and has had, very close friends who are homosexual, yet she speaks of it as aberrant and abhorrent since her conversion to Christianity. Maybe it’s because she converted while living in Kentucky, and attending a Charismatic Non-Denominational church. Whereas I am a Quaker (Evangelical, programmed), and needed no conversion, because I found a church that supported my own conclusions about God and the Bible over the preceding 20 years of my life.

Cynthia PriceDec 30, 2014 @ 15:26:42

This post is because I neglected to check the box to follow comments.

Kanika KalraDec 30, 2014 @ 15:48:56

Is it bad that such opinions just make me laugh at the idiocy of bigots? I mean, HONESTLY. The Phallic Idol of Sodomy?
It’s sad that such opinions exist – thrive, even – but they still make me laugh. 😀
I have no idea who this John C. Wright is, but I hate – ehm, /strongly dislike/ – the fact that he calls himself a lifelong fan.
Why are you on my side, Mr Wright? I don’t want you on my side. Go away. 😮

SallyDec 30, 2014 @ 15:50:33

I kinda wonder (besides the ranting and frothing) how he expects us to take his argument at all seriously, given his mistake of the amount of affection of lesbians for Phallic Idols. Fails at the first fence, I’d say. Also more moral points off for using the word “retarded”, which has been regarded as Not On my entire life, unless you’re the sort of person who says the N word openly as well.

However, I’ve learned of the humorous water towers of middle America, and that’s good. Whoever thought the… extra bit on the peach was a good idea should have been dissuaded. Think Of The Children, indeed.

Kiri Aradia MorganDec 30, 2014 @ 16:55:07

The Golden Age series was pretty good, but there were aspects of it that showed signs of where he might go–for instance, how come in all the transhuman glory of the period he depicted, did nobody ever think to hook up with anyone not of the opposite gender? I liked the first two but the ending was very tired, more of the same “people need misery and pain in their lives or they don’t grow and learn” BS that I loathe.

LSDec 30, 2014 @ 17:18:31

I adore you, Jim C. Hines; please keep speaking for me

Steve MCDec 30, 2014 @ 17:35:59

Never seen the show, but your post had me laughing and that fan video had me in tears. If that’s not reaching people and opening their hearts, I don’t know what is.

Earlier today, I found Wright’s homophobic rant grotesquely amusing for its ignorance and silliness. Then I saw today’s local news, and it’s reminded me that Wright’s toxic rant is ugly, brutal, and dangerous; the attitudes he advocates cost human lives.

That guy is a tool. You ROCK and I love the inclusive characters! Plus, I love your goblin series and the library one too. XOXOXO

KeithDec 30, 2014 @ 20:17:43

Tarrlok was a slimy manipulative politician and somewhat bender supremacist, but his villainy was motivated by genuine overreaction to Equalist terrorist attacks, and he only descended into outright villainy (capturing Korra and hiding her away) when he was directly attacked by her and he couldn’t find another way out.

What was interesting about the show is that it had a gray worldview that Wright no doubt feels uncomfortable about. Just like Tarrlok had an understandable motivation for what he did, so did Amon…season 2 showed that Amon’s revolution had essentially *won*: the city wasn’t ruled by a council of benders, but by a popularly elected democracy. Amon was a terrorist but the show unquestionably indicated that his basic motivation was legitimate and that his support came from a genuine social problem.

DemetriasIIDec 30, 2014 @ 20:22:48

Holding hands wasn’t his complaint. No the complaint is that what should be just two women going off to have adventures was shoe horned into being a sexual situation by the creators after the fact. There is no evidence, not one iota, for a relationship beyond friendship between the two women in the actual show. Wright’s complaint is your sides desire to show all friendships as requiring sex for political purposes, not that two women are holding hands.

You’re welcome to disagree with the creators’ statements about their creation, and about their process of developing the relationship. But don’t come in here with that weak-ass, wishful thinking argument because you choose not to see the things they wrote into the story to build that relationship.

And take your silly “sides” argument with you when you leave. Trying to make everything into an “Us vs. Them” war is rather pathetic, and betrays an inability to handle complex thought, or the idea that different people can have a whole range of different opinions.

yamamanamaDec 30, 2014 @ 20:38:20

I’m imagining Mr. DiMartino from Daria.

xdpaulDec 30, 2014 @ 21:14:28

Paul Weimer is right to confess and apologize, but I don’t know if he should be forgiven. After all, he of his own volition is expanding Wright’s readership.

I suspect he may be fronting for the extreme right-wing, and that his confession and apology are just a front. Don’t fall for it, and don’t accept any more direct links from him.

I may be reading you wrong, Paul Weimer, but we can’t be too cautious these days. Seriously, the bigots and their nefarious agents are simply exploding in number, and we can’t afford even the hint of them among the ranks of the right-minded.

xdpaulDec 30, 2014 @ 21:17:42

Or maybe Prussian Blue.

xdpaulDec 30, 2014 @ 21:26:41

No offense, Jim, but I’m pretty sure that accusing a widely regarded Campbell Award winner of “Losing His Shit” is a straight up Us/Them salvo. What’s wrong with Us/Them?

SallyDec 30, 2014 @ 21:29:52

With a lot of misery and pain, people CAN’T (as, are physically unable to) grow and learn, and anyone who doesn’t realize that is either very young or willfully self-blinded. I leave, exercise to reader, etc.

One would think in a transhuman future, people be hooking up with everyone, and everything, or else what’s the point of being transhuman and still bothering with sexuality?

xdpaul – I don’t know who you are, and I can’t tell if this is supposed to be sarcastic or serious, or what you’re actually trying to say here.

xdpaulDec 30, 2014 @ 21:44:48

Yeah, but he’s got a big readership for his books, and he’s got commenters, and you most certainly went after ideas that are held by more people than just “some guy on the internet.”

Are you suggesting that you don’t speak for those fans you mentioned? That you aren’t somehow siding with them?

I’m really confused here.

What have you got against identifying groups of science fiction fans who aren’t thinking correctly? Don’t you believe that is a critical condition for isolating those small remnants of outdated thinking? Do you think they will go away by themselves?

xdpaulDec 30, 2014 @ 21:47:03

I am just suspicious of his apology, that’s all. What was he doing going to such a reactionary site in the first place?

Look, if you’re incapable of seeing anything but a simplistic “Us vs. Them” binary where you’re either on one side or the other, and everyone on each side is somehow homogenous in thought and belief, then that’s your problem.

Please take your amateur baiting and trolling elsewhere.

SheckyDec 30, 2014 @ 21:49:27

“Mighty Peachoid”? That’s new to me! Hmm…no, while I like that quite a bit, I’m sticking with Giant Hemorrhoid in the Sky, but thank you! *tips hat*

I missed this the first time, but as someone who is a devoted Utena fan, has all the DVDs, watched it in Japanese and love it to death… I need to talk more about something here that you kind of bounce off of.

See, there’s a longstanding trope of having queer couples who end up dead, or in tragedy. One or the other, and sometimes both. Mercedes Lackey did it, for example. Big three-book queer love story; one ends up dead.

Revolutionary Girl Utena did it too, more or less. Maybe Utena still exists; maybe Anthy will find Utena; we don’t know. (In the manga, she doesn’t, but the anime is different in many ways.) At the time, I was really angry at it, because it hit that same trope after expecting better; even though she’s not dead (or so it’s implied), they’re still ending apart, as stories say you must, if you’re queer.

Queers mostly don’t, as you say, get to go off into the sunset together, in fiction. That’s historically not for us. For us: tragedy and/or separation, often through death.

Until now.

It may not seem like much to people who are used to having it. But in a desert, even a teacup’s worth becomes an ocean of water.

marie nelsonDec 30, 2014 @ 23:16:35

This kind of privileged tone is exactly what gets me so insanely infuriated about the fringe portions of the internet. That being said this is not exactly the type of reply Id expect. Can I ask you Hines, whether you really are afraid of these pricks (Yes I’m using that word )? “he would have needed time to swoon over the horrific perversion of two women holding hands. Not to mention having to counsel his poor, traumatized children”: is this a joke? We’re talking about a landmark for the LGBT community, the beginning of the end for children oppressively programmed into a homo-normative mindset from birth. From someone like you Id expect more appreciation for human rights than a sarcastic criticism/copout.

Well, that’s how I saw him, anyway. There’s room for interpretation and all that.

One of the things I actively like about the Avatarverse is that they take a cue from Japanese animation storytelling in their storylines: everybody has reasons. You might well even with them. There’s very little LOL I’M EVIL and while there’s room for that, it’s nice seeing some… aheh… balance… on that front? ^_^

John C WrightDec 31, 2014 @ 00:22:15

Dear Mr Hines: If a writing team betrays me for my loyalty by halting the story to preach a sermon on a religion that is alien to my religion and hostile to it, those writers get no grief for being treacherous, sly, or underhanded; but I get grief for daring to have a religion that differs from theirs, and for following as my conscience dictates, even though I am not being treacherous, sly, or hidden here.

I am the not ashamed of my beliefs, ergo I do not need to sneak in little sly advertisement for them into a children’s show, into the literal last two minutes, without warning, and so ambiguously that it requires a later public statement to take a stand.

Nor am I, Mr. Hines, the bigot here. You are. You are so craven in your bigotry, that you do not even do me the courtesy of addressing me directly, nor linking to the column with which you took exception, nor discussing the merits of the case.

Also: learn to read English, please, sir. I did not call for the extermination of people, but of ideas.

Yeah, I had a run around with this yahoo and his echo chamber, I mean followers, back in July when I blogged about the comments they made about D&D having inclusive language, and how it was “blah blah blah” about the “gay agenda.” And then I got called a bigot because I wouldn’t accept their hateful nonsense.

I do not need to sneak in little sly advertisement for them into a children’s show, into the literal last two minutes, without warning, and so ambiguously that it requires a later public statement to take a stand.

As most of us who watched the show noted, this arc began in Book 3, two seasons ago; the authors confirmed they had intentionally been building towards it since then. Some of us had even been joking about it in Book 1, tho’ as a silly idea that we never thought would come to fruition. It’s simply false to assert that it hadn’t been present; it merely became untenable even for the more stridently heterosexual to ignore at the end.

I provide as reference The Big List of Korra-Asami Relationship Sources, from the Talk/discussion page of the Korra article on Wikipedia. Several people claimed the relationship didn’t even exist. In response, a long, long list of reactions and commentary were collected from sources as far afield as Forbes to more obvious ones such as io9, indicating that it was not remotely subtle.

Also, your blog post has been linked from here the entire time; I myself followed the link several hours ago – the very first link in the article – to read your post, and the comments made in response to it.